Green Auto

General Motors has said that it intends to test a fleet of Chevrolet Cruze and Daewoo Lacetti Evs in South Korea. The exercise has been formulated with the objective of checking GM’s core vehicle electrification process. The prototypes feature a 31-kWh battery and a 150 kW (201 hp / 204 PS) electric motor, which enables the car to accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in 8.2 seconds and hit a top speed of 165 km/h (103 mph).

Toyota has announced that they have plans to introduce six new hybrid vehicles by the year 2012. The company has not revealed too many details yet, apart from the at that they are planning to have three of thee models only as hybrids and the other three will be hybrid versions of models that are already out on the market, which are currently running as petrol versions.

Peugeot has officially announced its 3008 HYbrid4. The car is the world’s first diesel-powered fully hybrid vehicle. The HYbrid4 comes with a 2.0 liter HDi diesel engine with 163 PS (120 kW) and 300 Nm of torque which powers the front wheels.

Fisker has released a promotional video of the luxury plug-in hybrid, the Fisker Karma. The car features two electric motors, which are powered by a 200kW lithium-ion battery pack that produces 300 kW (402 hp / 408 PS) and 1,300 Nm (959 lb/ft) of torque.

Interest towards the Nissan Leaf has suddenly surged, after a brief lull. Though there had been lots of interest for pre-order, there had been a fall in numbers as time went by. However, the Leaf is seeing a comeback in interest. The car maker is said to be steadily jacking up more potential sales though not in the same tempo as it used to be earlier.

According to Nissan, Leaf’s pre-order status in the US market place which stood at 13,000, plus an additional 6,000 in Japan, has now gone up to more than 15,000 in the US. It looks like more US buyers are ready to shell out $99 as reservation fee to be in line to drive the initial batches of the Leaf.

It may be also noted that the pre-orders for the Nissan Leaf in the US and Japan combined would stand somewhere well over the 20,000-levels. In case you are interested to know what color is being most sought after, market analysis says that around 29 percent of the recorded pre-orders have chosen the Aqua Globe vehicle while the one with Silver hues comes in as the second most preferred at 26 percent.

The Auris Hybrid from the Toyota stables is set for a line-off ceremony from Toyota’s production company in the United Kingdom. The first ever hybrid vehicle that is being mass produced in Europe will sail off today from the Toyota Manufacturing, UK (TMUK) assembly line. With sales expected to start with sales on July 1, Toyota intends to take the Auris Hybrid to as many as 32 European nations. The TMUK will be rolling out as many as 30,000 units of the vehicle annually. The TMUK which had come into being way back in 1992 has already recorded a cumulative production of 3 million vehicles this year, going by the June 7 figures.